Bannatyne Club. Abstract of the treasurer's accounts [Nos. I-IX].
[Edinburgh].
[Printed by Ballantyne & Co.], [1828-39]
Quarto..
Nine separately issued parts. Contemporary half-calf, brown paper boards, tooled in gilt and blind. Extremities rubbed. Internally clean and crisp. Book-label to FPE of J. Blackwood Greenshields of Kerse House, Lanarkshire
[Together with a clutch of 27 notices, both printed and manuscript, relating to the club's transactions].
[Together with a clutch of 27 notices, both printed and manuscript, relating to the club's transactions].
A rare opportunity to acquire an ephemeral archive of elusive and unrecorded material relating to the proceedings of one of nineteenth century Scotland's foremost literary societies, the Bannatyne Club, founded in 1823 by Sir Walter Scott for the purpose of printing hitherto unpublished or long out-of-print material relating to the history and literature of Scotland.
The collection includes an unbroken run of the first nine numbers of the abstracts of the treasurer's accounts of the club, issued annually under the supervision of antiquary David Laing (1793-1878) the club's first and only secretary, and sometime librarian to the Society of Writers to H. M. Signet.
Laing saw through to publication well over a hundred volumes for the society, at least thirty-nine of which were edited or part-edited by himself, before it was dissolved in 1861. It was he who held the club together and saw that the publication schedule did not waver, either for want of editorial industry or dearth of patrons, as well as maintaining the clubbable aspects of membership.
In evidence of this, the majority of the loose articles that comprise this archive bear his name, including a printed list of candidates proposed for admission at the annual general meeting in 1827; a notice announcing the printing of one hundred copies of Criminal Trials in the Court of Justiciary, addressed in manuscript to antiquary and founding member James Maidment (bap. 1793, d. 1879); and two A.L.S. in Laird's hand, one presenting an anonymous recipient with a copy of a list of Bannatyne Club publications; the other addressed to fellow associate of the Society of Writers to H. M. Signet Andrew Grieve communicating the appreciation of the Bannatyne members for having obtained for the Club the use of the manuscript 'Memoirall Buik' composed by George Bannatyne (1545-1607/8), for whom the society was named; the second presenting an anonymous recipient with a copy of a list of Bannatyne Club publications.
£ 1,500.00
Antiquates Ref: 28579
The collection includes an unbroken run of the first nine numbers of the abstracts of the treasurer's accounts of the club, issued annually under the supervision of antiquary David Laing (1793-1878) the club's first and only secretary, and sometime librarian to the Society of Writers to H. M. Signet.
Laing saw through to publication well over a hundred volumes for the society, at least thirty-nine of which were edited or part-edited by himself, before it was dissolved in 1861. It was he who held the club together and saw that the publication schedule did not waver, either for want of editorial industry or dearth of patrons, as well as maintaining the clubbable aspects of membership.
In evidence of this, the majority of the loose articles that comprise this archive bear his name, including a printed list of candidates proposed for admission at the annual general meeting in 1827; a notice announcing the printing of one hundred copies of Criminal Trials in the Court of Justiciary, addressed in manuscript to antiquary and founding member James Maidment (bap. 1793, d. 1879); and two A.L.S. in Laird's hand, one presenting an anonymous recipient with a copy of a list of Bannatyne Club publications; the other addressed to fellow associate of the Society of Writers to H. M. Signet Andrew Grieve communicating the appreciation of the Bannatyne members for having obtained for the Club the use of the manuscript 'Memoirall Buik' composed by George Bannatyne (1545-1607/8), for whom the society was named; the second presenting an anonymous recipient with a copy of a list of Bannatyne Club publications.
